


We Were Broken (but at least we were broken together)

by Nazezdha321



Series: All’s Fair in Love and War [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Grief, Guilt, Please Read Trigger Warnings, not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazezdha321/pseuds/Nazezdha321
Summary: “There were fourteen million six hundred and four futures where the Avengers lost.Fourteen million six hundred and four futures where nobody came home.Fourteen million six hundred and four futures where Natasha Romanoff didn’t throw herself off a cliff on a snowy day on a beautiful purple planet in the center of celestial existence.On bad days, Clint wishes that they lost.”Or, Clint deals with his grief after Natasha dies.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton/Laura Barton
Series: All’s Fair in Love and War [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678204
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	We Were Broken (but at least we were broken together)

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Zippie, with all my love. 
> 
> This is not a happy fic y’all. 
> 
> Trigger Warnings:  
> \- Suicide  
> \- Self-harm (intentional)  
> \- I’m not sure if Depression is a trigger warning but here it is anyway

There were fourteen million six hundred and four futures where the Avengers lost. 

Fourteen million six hundred and four futures where nobody came home. 

Fourteen million six hundred and four futures where Natasha Romanoff didn’t throw herself off a cliff on a snowy day on a beautiful purple planet in the center of celestial existence. 

On bad days, Clint wishes that they lost. 

“It was supposed to be me,” He tells Laura, only Laura, because Laura understands, or at least she pretends to. On bad days, she takes his hand and pulls his close as he cries. 

When he doesn’t cry, he whispers words of rage, words that haunt him when he tries to fall asleep. “It was supposed to be us against the world, not us against each other.” 

**\- - -**

On good days, Clint visits Nat’s grave. There was no body to bury, or at least, no one wanted to go back for it, so they buried flowers from Lila’s garden in a coffin. Lila and Cooper and Nate picked the prettiest flowers, and they argued over which ones they thought to be so. When Laura asked Lila why, she told them that death picks the most beautiful flowers for its garden. 

The Avengers have their own cemetery with the graves of every Avenger. Natasha’s grave is near the back, in front of a weeping willow. There’s a glass jar where Clint puts handwritten notes, telling her they miss her, asking her why she did it, and letting her know they won. There must be hundreds of notes in there by now, telling her that they won. 

Sometimes, Clint sees Wanda standing over the twin tombstones of Vision and Pietro, or Pepper kneeling next to the grave of Tony with roses in hand. Clint always brings his little notes, but never flowers. He figures that Nat probably has enough flowers by now. 

**\- - -**

Seeing little kids dressed up as the Black Widow is bittersweet, reminding Clint that she’s gone, and yet, seeing her legacy as a hero makes Clint remember what she spent her life trying to do. 

“And she did it,” Laura tells him every time Clint says this. He knows. He knows that out of all the battles Natasha fought, the hardest ones were the ones against herself. There’s a picture of Nat in their living room, Nat with Lila and Cooper playing tag while Nate was on Nat’s shoulders, his hands outstretched to tag his siblings. It reminds Clint of what she spent her life chasing. 

Of what she finally caught when she died. 

**\- - -**

“Can I go with you to Auntie Nat’s grave?” Lila asks every day Clint goes with a note. 

“Not today,” Clint says, “but I’ll take you and your brothers tomorrow.”

Natasha’s room in their house - the guest room, officially - remains untouched. It’s where Lila goes when she wants to be alone, where Cooper goes when he’s mad, where Nate goes when he begs Auntie Nat to come back, and where Laura goes when she just wants to talk with Natasha for a little while.

Clint can’t go in there. He can’t face the reminder of how terrible it is to love someone that death can touch. He can barely face it when he goes to her grave, and that’s just a coffin filled with flowers under the dirt. 

Some days, he hears Lila walk in there and carefully add another piece of artwork to Natasha’s collection. 

**\- - -**

“Can you tell me a story with a happy ending?” Nate asks every night. 

Every night, Clint refrains from bitterly telling his four-year-old son that there are no stories with happy endings, not real ones, anyway. Instead, he begins with, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...” 

“Daddy, how come everyone gets a happy ending in Star Wars but not in real life?” Nate asks one evening. 

“Not everyone does,” Clint says. And he goes on to explain _Rogue One_. 

“But Jyn got a happy ending,” Nate replies when the story is done, confused. Clint looks at him strangely. “She died fighting for what she loved with the people she loved next to her. Like Auntie Nat. How come more people don’t die that way?” 

“It’s just the way it happens, kiddo,” Laura explains from the doorway. “Sometimes, you’ve got to be willing to die in order for others to live. That’s what makes a hero.” Nate stares up at them for a minute, and then snuggles under the covers. 

“Goodnight, Daddy, goodnight, Mommy.” 

**\- - -**

On the very worst of all the days, Clint feels regret. Guilt. Laura calls it survivor’s guilt. Once upon a time, so did he. But this - this is different. He _could have_ saved Nat. “I should’ve tried harder.” 

“Clint,” Laura murmurs sadly, “she wanted to die.” 

“She told me she didn’t want to do it.”

“She also told you that she wanted to save your life.” 

“I told her I didn’t want her to.” 

“It was her time, Clint,” Laura says finally, ending the back-and-forth of Natasha’s last words. “You need to let her go. Do you want to live your life regretting how hers ended?”

Clint doesn’t have an answer to that. 

**\- - -**

On normal days, days that aren’t good or bad, just passing time, Clint visits Wanda and sometimes Steve in his SHIELD Assisted Living Facility. He only visits Wanda if he can find her, because she goes through periods where no one knows where she is, and no one can reach her. If he can’t find Wanda, he’ll visit Steve, who is typically telling kids war stories for various school projects. 

“Do you have any stories, Mr. Hawkeye?” they sometimes ask. Steve will settle in, glad to have a moment of rest from the inquiring minds of young children while Clint will proceed to tell them about Budapest, St. Petersburg, Cairo, and all the missions he can remember when it was just Clint and Nat, STRIKE Team Delta. 

Maybe, Clint thinks, if it was still Clint and Nat, STRIKE Team Delta, then Nat would still be alive. 

**\- - -**

“You’re wasting your time on the _whats ifs_ ,” Wanda guesses as soon as Clint walks into her room at the newly rebuilt Avengers Compound. 

Clint looks at her strangely. 

“So am I,” She confesses. He smiles. 

“They keep telling me that there was no other way we would’ve won,” Clint says, sitting next to Wanda on her bed. “You want me to be brutally honest?” 

Wanda shrugs. “I can’t tell what’s a truth and what’s a lie anymore.”

“I think they think that’s it’s okay she died because she didn’t have a family. Not a biological one, anyway.” 

Wanda nods, hands red, twirling her magic. “I’m sure that’s what they think. Would you like to know what I think?” 

Clint nods. 

“I think if she had nothing to lose, then you had nothing to live for.”

**\- - -**

Laura is carrying Nate’s clean laundry barefoot up to his room. That kid somehow always ends up with mud all over him, and she does his laundry at least three times a week. 

She sees the bathroom light on with the door halfway open and shakes her head. You’d think those kids could learn to turn off a light if they can learn how to shoot an arrow. Laura sets down the navy blue basket and fully opens the door. 

She goes to turn off the light before her foot slips in something. 

Laura looks down at the blood on the floor and the body against the wall and screams. 

**\- - -**

Wanda wear the same dress she wore to Nat and Tony’s funerals. She’s as pale as a ghost, red hair stark against her white skin. Her eyes are rimmed with red, and not just from the tears. She knows it’s her fault Clint is dead. She told him he had nothing to live for - she didn’t mean it like that, she meant it past tense, because his family was back - 

It doesn’t matter. Clint won’t come back with her explanations. Neither will Pietro or Vision. She can never tell Laura about that conversation. She can never tell the kids who look up to her like she’s an angel. After all, no one expects an angel to set the world on fire. 

Wanda is tired of the pain, the grief. First Pietro. Then Vision. Now Clint. 

Wanda is _done_. 

What if the only way to not feel pain is to feel nothing at all?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I would love to hear your feedback! Please leave kudos if you think this merits them. Comments make my day :) 
> 
> Apologies to Zippie, for killing your favorite Avenger, and not really to Sanctuaria because the whole point is to make you cry. 
> 
> Cheers!


End file.
